Recently integration policy has been making news in the Netherlands. Various media report that half of refugees and migrants do not complete the integration requirements on time (deadline of three years to pass the integration exam); that language teachers are critical of the content and procedures surrounding the integration exams; and that a broad coalition of societal actors want municipalities to (once again) play a central role in integration policy. These reports, however, all relate to only one aspect of integration: what is known in Dutch as ‘inburgering’, in other words language and civic integration courses. However, ‘integration’ has a much broader meaning: it is the process by which refugees and migrants come to participate in the society of the country in which they live. Integration concerns their rights and responsibilities in a broad range of domains, such as employment, education, housing, health and social security.

The Maastricht Centre for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE) currently participates in the NIEM project (National Integration Evaluation Mechanism), which compares the integration policies of refugees in 15 EU Member States. Our initial research findings have revealed that there is no specific integration policy targeted towards refugees in the Netherlands. The Netherlands has abandoned its so-called ‘doelgroepenbeleid’ of the past, which means that refugees and migrants are no longer targeted by specific instruments aimed at increasing their participation in education and employment or improving their access to housing and healthcare. Instead, integration has become part of the mainstream policy. Refugees are targeted by the same general instruments as for any other national; for example, they have the same right to a government subsidy towards their rental costs, depending on their income, and they fall under the same general obligation as everyone else in the Netherlands to buy health insurance. In some cases, refugees are a sub-group of a broader target group; for example, the government provides extra financial help for schools to cope with ‘newcomers’, but these are defined as children who have been in the Netherlands for less than two years, regardless of the purpose of their residence here.

A ‘policy’ also implies some sort of broadly coordinated effort. And yet we have seen the diffusion and decentralisation of integration policy in the Netherlands: diffusion to the ministries responsible for the relevant policy area, be it health, housing, or education; and decentralisation due to a certain degree of freedom for municipalities as to how they fulfil the requirements placed on them (for instance in the implementation of the Participation Act).

Does anything then remain of integration policy? ‘Inburgering’ is still an important tenet of integration in the Netherlands, but given the minimal role of the government and local authorities in this process, it is questionable whether we can call this a ‘policy’. The individual refugee or migrant is responsible for his/her own integration trajectory, including finding a course; paying for it either with own means or with a loan taken out from DUO (governmental education office); and completing the integration trajectory in a timely manner.

Is this an appropriate way to address integration? Given some of the structural problems that refugees face, the answer would seem to be ‘no’. Taking employment as an example: several studies, both by academics and governmental research units, show that refugees have poor labour market participation rates compared to native Dutch, but also compared to other migrants. It is therefore questionable whether it is effective enough to target this group only with general labour market activation instruments. Instead, the government should consider bringing integration policy back to life.

 Written by Natasja Reslow and Dersim Yabasun 
 Published on Law Blogs Maastricht